Posts Tagged discovery

Before the financial meltdown of 2008, small firms in the United States in 2007 comprised 99.7 percent of all employer firms. These firms employed slightly more than half of all private industry workers, and paid 44 percent of private business payroll. Small firms produced 64 percent of net new jobs for 15 years before this time. Small firms created over half the private nonfarm gross domestic product, and hired better than 40 percent of high-tech jobs for scientists, engineers, and computer programmers. Further, small businesses made up 97.3 percent of all exporters producing 30.2 percent of known export values in 2007. Small businesses accounted for 52 percent of home-based businesses and 2 percent of franchises (Kolbe, 2007; Yallapragada & Bhuiyan, 2011).

A growing part of entrepreneurship comes from social entrepreneurship. Shockley and Frank (2010) distinguished social entrepreneurship from commercial entrepreneurship as consisting of a community orientation that forgoes private incentive for public benefit. Shockley and Frank connect the economic entrepreneurship theories of Joseph Schumpeter and Israel Kirzner to Western literature, namely Virgil’s Aeneid. The three main parts of Virgil’s (2006) Aeneid deal with using the mind to discover, developing a duty to community interests, and believing in the fate of the actor to avoid uncertainty or “unknown probabilities” (Knight, 1921; Shockley & Frank, 2010, p. 777).

Social entrepreneurship fills societal needs not met by commercial entrepreneurship and stresses discovery, community, and the fate to overcome unknown conditions. Commercial entrepreneurship is not exclusive of social responsibility, but in modern society has focused on the interests of enlarging profits for the benefit of capitalist investors. This motive is not to say entrepreneurs have no interest in societal interests as surely some entrepreneurs champion such issues before profits, but many companies put profits first after a founder finds a successful model. Social entrepreneurs can discover solutions to societal needs in either or both the public or private domain.

Schumpeter (1934/2002) argued new combinations affect the flow of capital and causes temporary disequilibrium aiding in economic development. Schumpeter (1994) put “creative destruction” at the center of entrepreneurship. Schumpeter explained how “creative destruction” leads to the demise of the entrepreneur and a temporary socialistic state to deal with new unmet needs because the entrepreneur becomes a capitalist and ceases to work as an entrepreneur. Shockley and Frank (2010) referred to Schumpeter’s works as foundational and timeless finding these same ideas in Virgil’s Aeneid.

Similarly, Kirzner (1973) put “entrepreneurial discovery” (p. 39) at the center of entrepreneurial theory. Kirzner argued the entrepreneur’s role is to stay alert to unnoticed opportunities and relies on unpredictable behavior akin to the fate in Virgil’s Aeneid. Both Schumpeter and Kirzner distinguish the entrepreneur from the capitalist because the entrepreneur risks no investment in discovery(Shockley & Frank, 2010).

The point of this literature is that both the role of the entrepreneur and capitalist are necessary in a market economy. Today, the role of the entrepreneur has succumbed to the capitalist and caused discovery to slow for the sake of promoting the profit motives of the capitalist, but the capitalist cannot grow without discovery. Capitalists choose not to meet societal needs. The temporary state to overcome the problem rests in Schumpeter’s notion of “creative destruction” where socialism takes over until the entrepreneur can return to the flow of the equilibrium process (Schumpeter,1994).

I see little effort today to recognize the entrepreneur’s role to resolve this problem despite the significant contributions entrepreneurs made before the financial meltdown of 2008. Some people have played down the role of restoring equilibrium and have extended the problem by suspending a capitalistic economy indefinitely. I see social entrepreneurship as a step to restoring discovery needed to return the flow to the equilibrium process.

I would like to hear your thoughts about how to restore capitalism by re-emphasizing entrepreneurship’s role and ending the state of “creative destruction” in which the United States economy currently resides. Learn more.

Kolbe, K. (2007). How important are small businesses to the United States’ economy. Office of Advocacy, Funded Research, United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census and International Trade Administration.

Schumpeter, J. A. (1934/2002). The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.